Investors Who Gave Groupon, Like, A Billion Dollars Get Closer To, Like, Breaking Even

Remember when Groupon raised, like, a billion dollars ? We certainly do. Well, it looks like Groupon's slide over the past month is bringing its last round of venture investors ever closer to breaking even. The stock has rebounded slightly this morning to $11.49, but the number to watch is $7.90. That's effectively what several top-tier Silicon Valley venture firms including Kleiner Perkins, Greylock and Andreessen Horowitz paid per share when they invested $946 million in Groupon between December 2010 and January 2011. At that point, they bought Series G Preferred Shares for $31.59 each. These later converted into four shares of common stock on October 31 of last year , just a few days before Groupon's initial public offering on November 4 .

Well, it looks like Groupon’s slide over the past month is bringing its last round of venture investors ever closer to breaking even. The stock has rebounded slightly this morning to $11.49, but the number to watch is $7.90.

All eyes are on May 14, when Groupon will report quarterly earnings for the second time as a publicly traded company. More notably, the end of the lock-up period is coming up soon. That’s the point at which investors will actually be able to sell their stakes in the company. It’s coming up on June 1, after being pushed back from the original date of May 2 because that was too close to their earnings date.

There are analysts out there arguing a bull case for Groupon. Goldman Sachs research team had a buy recommendation with a 12-month price target of $25 as of April 1. Morgan Stanley analysts say that the company’s relationships with local merchants through its 5,000-person salesforce help make the company’s model defensible. The earnings restatement was “a mild hiccup in Groupon’s compelling long-term story,” Morgan Stanley’s Scott Devitt wrote in a research note.

So it’s quite possible that this very post marks the point at which all negative news has been priced in. Here’s hoping for Groupon’s sake.

P.S. Do you know which late-stage investors would actually be in the red if they could sell today? The ones that bought Zynga’s Series C Preferred shares in February 2011 at $14.03 a pop. They converted one-for-one into Class B common stock with the company’s IPO. Zynga shares currently trade at $8.72. (Ouch!)